For every team that makes it to the Hyundai Sun Bowl, something went right over the course of the season that earned them the New Year's Eve football.

For every team here, something else went wrong that kept them out of the Rose Bowl or Orange Bowl or BCS National Championship Game.

So it is with USC, a program that began the year No. 1 before finishing 7-5, and a Georgia Tech squad that came within a few feet of winning in El Paso last year.

The respective coaches, Lane Kiffin for the Trojans and Paul Johnson for the Yellow Jackets, were in town Thursday to discuss the matchup, which marks USC's first trip to the postseason after a two-year bowl ban and Johnson's second trip to the 17th floor of the DoubleTree in 363 days.

"We started the season 6-1. We were at Arizona on the road up 15; we had the ball, and we missed a deep pass that would have put us up 22," Kiffin said. "They threw one to us and we dropped it.

"We lost the game and had a bad month, a five-week span where we went 1-4 after going 6-1. It was a disappointing way to finish the season.

"What went right, we had some star players really show up and have huge games. At the end of the day, we turned the ball over too much, turned the ball over on third down and we gave up too many yards and too many points."

Georgia Tech's season doesn't fit neatly into two segments. The Yellow Jackets were 2-1, then 2-4, then 6-5 before losing to national powerhouses Georgia and Florida State to set up the game with USC.

Advertisement

"Our season was kind of a roller coaster," Johnson said of a team that qualified for its 16th consecutive bowl. "We got off to a really rough start at 2-4; we lost two big conference games in overtime (Virginia Tech and Miami). In one we blew a 17-point fourth quarter lead; in one we lost 40 seconds after we had taken a lead. That had a big effect on our football team early on. ... Then we kind of got the thing turned around a little bit.

"We're just excited to have a chance to play, especially after the way the season started. I'm not very good at math, (but) we've been to something like 15 straight bowls. The seniors didn't want to be the ones to break that string."

Johnson added that in his 16-year head-coaching career, he has never played three consecutive teams quite like the ones he's closing this year with.

"I told somebody last week, I don't know what I did to get so lucky to get Georgia, Florida State and Southern Cal right in a row."

Both coaches talked about their excitement to be in this game, and Kiffin began his comments with an apology for a tweet one of his players made about El Paso after the game was announced.

"That doesn't represent any of our feelings, how we feel," Kiffin said. "We have not been in a bowl game in three years. It's been a long two years. We had our first bowl practice (Wednesday) morning.

"Our players don't know much about this bowl. They are excited about the matchup."

Georgia Tech players, on the other hand, do know quite a bit about the Sun Bowl, and Johnson said it was positive, other than a last-play overtime loss to Utah.

"The biggest thing I took from the game was the people -- the people of El Paso, the great bowl people, everybody involved.

"The hospitality was one thing I took more than anything else."

Georgia Tech will get a second crack at it later this month.

Bret Bloomquist may be reached at bbloomquist@elpasotimes.com; 546-6359. Follow him on Twitter at bretbloomquist